Manager/Coach Des Buckingham

[Northstandboy]

Manager Stats (Click Below)

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[MustardYellow]

And then add in out of form (McGuane, Rodrigues...and Harris previously) and injured players in key positions (especially Moore) then it should not be all that surprising or difficult to understand why we're currently concedeing more/seem less composed/make silly mistakes and are creating/scoring less at the other end.

So basically, we had a number of players who were performing well under Manning but are now performing poorly under Des.

I don't think that's the defence of Des you're making it out to be!

 

[Sheik djibouti]

So basically, we had a number of players who were performing well under Manning but are now performing poorly under Des.

I don't think that's the defence of Des you're making it out to be!

And your persistent anti-Des rhetoric lacks the nuance to entertain the idea that it's really not that simple as to pin it all on him.

 

[Scrongo]

There's a lot more important issues going on at the club , than sacking the teams manager...
I want a football club in 2 years time , not getting another new manager.
Get your priorities right ,lads & Lasses...

 

[BicesterU]

Realistically, with the season we had last year, the wholesale changes over the summer and again when Manning left, and the quality of some of the other teams in the league, we were always likely to drop away somewhat. I always considered our quick start to be a buffer rather than something that would continue throughout the season.

The way we've found ourselves in 7th is obviously disappointing, but as we saw with some of last night's results and those in recent weeks, we are still in with a real shot of a play-off place with 11 games remaining. Those final two spots are 100% up for grabs.

And just as quickly as we saw our results fall away earlier in the season, a bit of skill or a bit of luck could turn the tide in our favour again.

I'm a big believer in people controlling the things they can control.

Can we control whether Des is in the job or not come April? No.

Can we control whether Tim Williams is a plonker? No.

Can we control our reactions as a fanbase to conceding a goal, misplacing a pass, or buggering up a golden opportunity? Yes, we can.

We can all come up with reasons why things haven't gone well the last few months, but the only thing we have any control over is ourselves and how we carry ourselves at matches and in places like here, which very quickly becomes a doom spiral between matches, and I'm sure influences the way some fans feel on a match day.

Let's leave the 'I told you so's and autopsies until the end of the season, and do our best to lift the club and the players for a big final push, because - Tim, Des, Grant, Sam Long, everything and everyone else aside - it's our bloody football club, and sometimes the best thing we can do is give it our full-blooded support whether we actually feel it deserves it or not.

 

[Leysboy]

Ah, but what if the players don't want to play for him because they don't react well/agree with his methods - what then?

That is supposedly the case with Des.....isn't it?

Nothing supposedly about it. It’s true 3 I know of!

Enough about them, we talking about Pearson, who has a vast amount of EFL experience, and managed mostly at the next level. He would command respect.

You can say about players not agreeing with a managers methods all the time, about any club.

The problem here, is we have a manager that has managed/Coached at a poor level. You see similar action at the pitches near blackbird Leys bridge on a Sunday morning.

 

[MustardYellow]

And your persistent anti-Des rhetoric lacks the nuance to entertain the idea that it's really not that simple as to pin it all on him.

We had a manager who had us 2nd averaging 2.13 PPG (usually enough for automatic promotion). He left, the new manager comes in, 4 months later we're 7th playing woeful football and averaging 1.16 PPG (which last season would've had us 18th). Some 'nuance' to that is that other than Harris, every player has regressed under said new manager.

As I said in a pervious post, it's excuse after excuse. It's gone from give him a few games to settle, to wait till the injured players are back, to give him a transfer window, and now it's the staffs fault (even though other than an assistant most roles have been filled).

Unless the suggestion is that us winning games under Manning was a fluke, then it feels like defending the indefensible. Even if you say we were 'overperforming' under Manning, we're now significantly underperforming under Des.

Having a team 'overperforming' is the sign of a good manager, right? So what do we call managers who have a team underperforming?

 

[Wallop]

Yes in those days of course, thete was no internet, so the vociferous few were heard of a lot less!
Jim Smith would have had a lot of questioning here. Not only did he blow a good position, but he sold Keith Cassells ( a good striker), brought Trevor Hebberd in as a striker ( telling us he would score a load of goals), and then converted him from a striker to a CM player!
At the end of the first part of the season 20% After 3 matches, at least 40% on here would have wanted him fired.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Foley]

Nothing supposedly about it. It’s true 3 I know of!

The Oxford first team are paid very well.
If you are suggesting that 3 of the first team are telling all and sundry, that they don't want to play for a particular manager, I find that hard to believe.
If that is true, then I think that is a disgrace. I seriously hope that they get out of our club at the end of the season.
Of course some players prefer one manager over another- Thorniley for example wouldn't be expected to be happy. But to suggest that they don't want to play for a manage They should be trying as hard as possible under all managers.

 

[Common Villager]

Out of interest, can one of the stato's confirm:

- Our xG under Manning vs our actual goals scored
- Our xGA under Manning vs actual goals conceded

- Our xG under Des vs our actual goals scored
- Our xGA under Des vs actual goals conceded

Thank you!

 

[Oufcrealist]

Absolutely agree with alot of what your saying, but what do you you think of the performances ,,Carlisle was good ,Charlton was good the odd half's have been good but we have been shocking in so many .Let's hope with Moore back ,and more players getting fitter with a whole week on the practice ground Saturday we put up a good performance, we all want Des to do well. But it's been a disaster so far and nobody can say it hasn't.

I don't think Carlisle was particularly good, it was patchy but we took our chances.
Charlton was pretty even I thought but Smyth scored a worldie to win it!!
Burton at home has been the only convincing performance for me since Des has taken over.

 

[Oxford84]

Cambridge away was dire.

MK dons in the paint pot was dire.

Port Vale at home was rubbish.

Bristol Rovers at home was a rubbish performance. We just got lucky.

Carlisle at home. Most of the Exeter and Shrewsbury games at home, Blackpool 2nd half and Wycombe at home also rubbish to poor.

 

[Deanroger]

Fixed that for you.

To not make the play offs from the position we were in is nothing short of a management disaster.

 

[SteMerritt]

To not make the play offs from the position we were in is nothing short of a management disaster.

No, a "Management Disaster" would be failing to make them from the position we were in if he took over in April. It isn't good, but let's not go over the top.

 

[SirAndyOfCrosby]

Carlisle at home. Most of the Exeter and Shrewsbury games at home, Blackpool 2nd half and Wycombe at home also rubbish to poor.

This thread is becoming a parody.

"Look at these sh*te performances under Manning" I cry, as I cite 5 games that yielded 11 points.

 

[McXal]

I don't think Carlisle was particularly good, it was patchy but we took our chances.
Charlton was pretty even I thought but Smyth scored a worldie to win it!!
Burton at home has been the only convincing performance for me since Des has taken over.

Agree with all of this. I am very much one of the people who think Des should be given a proper summer to get his squad together and we shouldn’t be considering sacking him at all right now - but I am absolutely of the opinion that we’ve played poorly for pretty much all of his tenure (even in the victories).

Shrewsbury was his best effort. Against Northampton and Portsmouth more recently I thought we were largely solid and let ourselves down with some errors at key moments. Other than that there have been a few good 30 minute periods - not even halves - but that’s it. We finished strongly (after a poor first hour) at Wycombe. We were good for 30 minutes against Derby. Controlled a pretty low quality second half at Carlisle. Gave it a good crack against Bolton but finished noticeably second best. Even the Wigan game we got the bounce of the ball on a few of our goals and were probably quite flattered by the scoreline. Considering how we’ve hung onto the Top 6 it’s actually quite unbelievable how poor we’ve been since November.

I’m not expecting to make the playoffs after the last 2 results - but they are still a possibility. Whether that happens or not I do want to see us finish the season delivering much better performances. That Orient performance was abject. On the assumption that we’re getting nothing from Bolton and Pompey away, the home game against Cheltenham is a MASSIVE fixture (as it was last season ironically).

 

[Oxford84]

Agree with all of this. I am very much one of the people who think Des should be given a proper summer to get his squad together and we shouldn’t be considering sacking him at all right now - but I am absolutely of the opinion that we’ve played poorly for pretty much all of his tenure (even in the victories).

Shrewsbury was his best effort. Against Northampton and Portsmouth more recently I thought we were largely solid and let ourselves down with some errors at key moments. Other than that there have been a few good 30 minute periods - not even halves - but that’s it. We finished strongly (after a poor first hour) at Wycombe. We were good for 30 minutes against Derby. Controlled a pretty low quality second half at Carlisle. Gave it a good crack against Bolton but finished noticeably second best. Even the Wigan game we got the bounce of the ball on a few of our goals and were probably quite flattered by the scoreline. Considering how we’ve hung onto the Top 6 it’s actually quite unbelievable how poor we’ve been since November.

I’m not expecting to make the playoffs after the last 2 results - but they are still a possibility. Whether that happens or not I do want to see us finish the season delivering much better performances. That Orient performance was abject. On the assumption that we’re getting nothing from Bolton and Pompey away, the home game against Cheltenham is a MASSIVE fixture (as it was last season ironically).

Playing well for parts of games and rubbish in others has been happening all season including under Manning, it just shows that the team isnt quite good enough yet to sustain performances. Not help by lots of money wasted by Robinson on players still not doing anything.

 

[WRox]

I don't think Carlisle was particularly good, it was patchy but we took our chances.
Charlton was pretty even I thought but Smyth scored a worldie to win it!!
Burton at home has been the only convincing performance for me since Des has taken over.

I’m not convinced there’s been a huge difference in performance level across Northampton, Wigan, Portsmouth, Wycombe, Reading, Carlisle, Charlton… Some have gone our way and some haven’t. Burton was an outlier as much as Rovers was the other way.

The performance level has been consistently mediocre for a while. The hope has to be that finally being able to marry up Moore in defence, a balanced midfield and some pace out wide might yield an improvement. I won’t be convinced by Des though until he sticks to those principles he’s hinted at. Be interesting to see what he does when Murphy’s unavailable again and if it’s back to dreadful one paced sideways football.

 

[McXal]

Playing well for parts of games and rubbish in others has been happening all season including under Manning, it just shows that the team isnt quite good enough yet to sustain performances. Not help by lots of money wasted by Robinson on players still not doing anything.

Wholly agree, and the reason why I’m not convinced our current shortcomings are all Des’ fault and sacking him would yield a colossal uplift in form.

He’s clearly not done great. He is underperforming. He clearly is getting less out of the squad than Manning (under whom I do think we played well more often, and played in a far more coherent and controlled manner. Even in defeat I felt like I could see how we were trying to win for the most part - e.g. Wigan away where we dominated the ball but were so wasteful and inept around their final third as they sat off and sensibly let us play around in front of them, that we opened ourselves up to be picked off). But I don’t buy that sacking Des fixes everything at this point.

I want to see us after a full pre-season under him. He’ll know as well as anyone that if we do fall out of the playoffs this season, and if we start poorly next season his position becomes incredibly jeopardised.

 

[Sheik djibouti]

We had a manager who had us 2nd averaging 2.13 PPG (usually enough for automatic promotion). He left, the new manager comes in, 4 months later we're 7th playing woeful football and averaging 1.16 PPG (which last season would've had us 18th). Some 'nuance' to that is that other than Harris, every player has regressed under said new manager.

As I said in a pervious post, it's excuse after excuse. It's gone from give him a few games to settle, to wait till the injured players are back, to give him a transfer window, and now it's the staffs fault (even though other than an assistant most roles have been filled).

Unless the suggestion is that us winning games under Manning was a fluke, then it feels like defending the indefensible. Even if you say we were 'overperforming' under Manning, we're now significantly underperforming under Des.

Having a team 'overperforming' is the sign of a good manager, right? So what do we call managers who have a team underperforming?

Actually, yes I do remember thinking we got away with at least a couple of results under Manning, so yes I would probably describe them as flukes (injury time pen to secure a draw v Wycombe, the win against Bris Rovers (which was the Long, Bodin and Rodrigues show, looking at the match report . . . would they do that now? Also lots of mentions of needing smart saves from Beadle to keep us in games early on in the season) . By the same token, I think teams also get flukey wins (Port Vale in September) and draws (Blackpool in October) against us. How many times have we thought how did we win/lose that? There will always be results against the run of play. It's never as black and white as good team always wins (thankfully).

Over the average of a season, these things do (mostly) even out, and frankly we are about where I thought we'd be this season, based on our unconvincing performances (yes, even under Manning), imbalanced squad, injury problems, losing a manager 4 months into the season and bringing in a number of players to try and redress the injuries and imbalance in the Jan transfer window....and then somehow expecting them to all immediately gel and rediscover the over-performance we witnessed up to mid/end October.

Out of form players is a combination of over-played/exhausted players, players returning from injury, a change in coaching set-up (hey . . maybe some of those "out of form" are the ones that didn't want Des? - think I've made my views clear on them!). You can't seriously take any of those issues in isolation, they are all part of the root cause of why we are now under-performing and I don't think anyone is denying we are underperforming, it's just that a fair few are seeing that the reasons why extend further than Manning = Good, Buckingham = Bad.

Again, I don't think EVERY player has regressed under Buckingham. CamBran hasn't, Josh Murphy hasn't Tyler Goodrham hasn't. I'm not sure Elliot Moore has either, but his injury and omission for the squad of late HAS impacted on our ability to be organised and defend well. I would argue that Ciaron Browns dip in form is mainly due to Moore's absence. I don't think Greg Leigh has hit the heady heights of performance that he did prior to his injury either - maybe he was the most striking example of an over-performing player under Manning and what we're seeing now is more par for the course, especially with no Kyle Edwards in front of him. After all, Ipswich were prepared to let him go last season.

So, like I say - far more nuanced than it's all Des' fault

 

[dickwalton1964]

I know it's a bit 'if my auntie was my uncle' but anyone suggesting holding on to second place was fanciful should just let this sink in;
Hold on to two leads last week in home games against Northampton and Orient and hold on to two leads against relegation threatened Reading and we would now be second. Morale of this, get on the front foot when you have a lead and blow inferior opposition away. The buck stops with Buckingham and his unfathomable tactics - simple as that.